Текст книги "The Secrets We Keep"

Автор книги: Trisha Leaver

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

40

There was a note tacked to the refrigerator. The handwriting was small and shaky, but I recognized it as Mom’s. She’d gone to the office with Dad. He had a few hours of work to catch up on before they had an appointment with a grief counselor. The address was written below the counselor’s name on the off chance that I wanted to join them. I wasn’t going. No counselor, no amount of framed diplomas on an office wall could get me out of the hole I’d dug. After that, they were going to get dinner. She said she’d call and let me know where they were going in case Alex and I wanted to join them after the game. I didn’t.

I looked at the clock on the microwave—it was 1:00. I’d never been to a shrink before, but I presumed my parents would be there awhile. They had a lot of stuff to hash out, stuff that was mainly my fault. My guess was they’d last about an hour, maybe more if Mom cried. That gave me a couple of hours, at least, before I had to face them.

I grabbed my phone and shut it off, going so far as to remove the battery from the back and shove the phone into the top drawer of my desk. I didn’t want to talk to anybody, at least not until I figured out exactly what I was going to say to my parents.

I went into my own closet and pulled out my favorite pair of jeans, the ones that Josh and I used to draw on when we were bored in History class. Each character, each symbol, and each silly quote had a story attached to it. I wanted to wrap myself in those memories and carry them with me. The flannel shirt was one of Maddy’s. It was soft and well worn, something she used to wear on the weekends when she was lounging around. It had a lipstick smudge on the sleeve and still smelled like her—lavender and vanilla, and the tiniest hint of Alex’s cologne that always seemed to linger around her. The sweatshirt Josh gave me the other day was still hanging on the chair downstairs. I grabbed it and put it on, drawing an overly long sleeve to my nose and breathing in the familiar inky scent that was Josh.

It felt good to surround myself with the warm scents of the two people I loved most, and without having to worry about my hair or makeup, I felt like regular old me. The only things missing were my sneakers and my sketchbook. I’d grab those in a minute.

“Hey, Bailey,” I said as I ruffled his fur. “You recognized me from the start. Nobody else did but you.”

He nuzzled my hand and rolled over, looking for me to scratch his belly. I reached for the box of treats Mom hadn’t moved from my nightstand. I hid the entire box underneath the comforter. If he could get at it, then they were his, my gift for making him suffer this past month without me. “I’ll see you in a little bit, buddy. You stay here and find your treats.”

I left him there pawing through my bed and went back into Maddy’s room to grab my wallet. I stopped midstep when I saw a dress wrapped in clear plastic lying on the bed. There was an alteration slip attached with a pick-up date of today. No wonder I couldn’t find the dress Maddy had bought for the Snow Ball. She’d taken it to be fitted the week before she died.

It was short and black, and there was a brand-new pair of heels sitting next to it. On top of the dress was a note from Mom instructing me to try it on in case it needed to be re-altered. I knew what she was getting at. I was thinner than before the accident, had been eating less.

I put down the note and picked up the silver box next to the dress. Inside was a pair of diamond earrings and a matching pendant. I recognized them. Grammy had given them to my mom before she died.

Maddy’s shoe box collection of memories was still in the closet, where I’d left it, the ones about Molly still tucked beneath the mattress. I reached to get them and pulled out every reference to Molly. I tore them into a million pieces and tossed them in the trash, then flushed the pills down the toilet. I never wanted Mom and Dad to find out what Maddy had done, never wanted their image of her tainted in any way. But that wasn’t in my hands anymore. That was up to Molly, and no matter what she decided to do with the information I’d handed her, I’d stand beside her, be the kind of friend she deserved.

I walked into my parents’ room to leave them a note. Last time I was there, Mom had my drawings scattered across her floor. They were still there, but now stacked neatly on Dad’s nightstand. I sifted through them until I found my favorite. It was a drawing of the tire swing that hung in Josh’s backyard. The rope was tattered, the tire barely there, but I loved that swing.

I turned the sketch over, my hands hovering over the blank page, unsure of what to write. A plain I’m sorry seemed too simplistic; the truth too complicated. What I finally settled on was this:

I’m Ella

I left the note on my parents’ bed, where I knew Mom would find it. She’d have questions for me when I got home, ones I had no idea how to answer. But I would, I would tell them everything and then pray they’d find a way to forgive me.

There was no going back. I knew telling my parents I wasn’t Maddy would destroy them. Mom needed Maddy, not Ella … not the quiet, independent Ella who always shut them out. But I couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t get up every morning and fight to be someone I wasn’t, someone I’d never wanted to be.

And Josh, well, I was pretty sure I’d messed that up. But at the end of the day, he had Kim. She was simple and loyal and tried so hard to please him. She could make him happy in a way I never could.

41

It was always cold and damp. No matter what day I came or what the sky looked like when I left the house, it always seemed to be cold and wet here. Maybe it was an omen. More likely just typical November weather in Rhode Island.

The granite marker bearing my name glistened in the rain, like tiny jewels reflecting a light that wasn’t there. It reminded me of Maddy, of the bangles and sparkly accessories she always wore. Even in death, buried six feet below a tombstone engraved with the wrong name, she found a way to shine through, making this morbid place her own.

I closed my eyes and counted to five before speaking the words I’d been holding back for so long. “I’m Ella. I’m not you. I never could be you. I never wanted to be you. I tried … for you, I tried, but I can’t do it anymore.”

Relief and pain fought for control, those simple words a torturous reminder of what I’d done. Sighing, I closed my eyes and surrendered to the truth. That was what I wanted. That was what I’d been struggling to say since the second I realized I wasn’t my sister and never could be.

“I. Am. Ella. Lawton.” I said it again, reveling in the sound of my own name, the sense of complete peace it brought.

A warm hand grazed my shoulder, and I gasped. I’d thought I was alone, thought I had more time to practice my confession before I actually came clean to the rest of the world.

“Hey, Ella,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you, officially that is.”

Molly held out her hand and I took it, not sure what else I was supposed to do. “I was telling the truth in the cafeteria. I’m really not Maddy,” I said, confused as to why she wasn’t angry with me, wasn’t calling me demented and insane for impersonating my dead sister.

“I know. The entire school knows. You pretty much told them all in the cafeteria today.”

“Why are you here? How did you know I was here?” I had expected Josh to come looking for me. He wasn’t in the cafeteria when I apologized to Molly and Alex, but I figured it wouldn’t have taken long for the news to reach him. I even secretly wished my parents would come find me once they got home and saw my note. But I never imagined it’d be Molly, the girl whose life my sister had nearly destroyed.

“I wasn’t done talking to you in the cafeteria. You weren’t at home, so I asked Josh where he thought you’d go, and he told me here, so…” Molly held her arms out wide as if that was explanation enough. It wasn’t.

“Josh, I get,” I said. He was my best friend, of course he would know where to find me. He’d been figuring me out for years, knew me better than I knew myself most days. “But why do you care?”

Molly dropped to the ground next to me, not caring that her white jeans were now covered in mud. “You can’t trade one life for another. Trust me, Ella. Maddy’s life … you don’t want it.”

I knew that. With every fiber of my being I knew that I could never be Maddy.

“So why aren’t you mad now?” I had braced myself for everybody’s anger, for them to be pissed beyond belief at what I’d done. This … this quiet understanding, I didn’t know what to do with it. “I lied to you. To everybody. Why aren’t you angry?”

Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I liked watching Alex stumble around you, and I kinda liked you, Ella. That, and it was nice to finally have a friend again.”

“You think everybody will hate me? You think my parents will? I mean, I know Josh does.”

“Josh? Hate you? Never. He’ll forgive you. He can’t help himself. That kid has had a thing for you since the first day your sister pawned you off on him. Everybody could see that.”

Everybody but me, that is. “What about—”

“Your parents?” she interrupted, and I nodded. “No. I mean, they’ll probably be confused more than anything. They’ll blame themselves for a while. I know my parents did. But eventually, you will sort it out.”

Molly understood what I was going through. She knew how hard it was to rebuild a life from a past that you wanted to forget, a past that you had absolutely no control over. “I don’t know what I am going to do.”

“I do.” Her voice was filled with a confidence I’d never heard from her before, and I prayed that a small sliver of her strength would find its way into me. “You’re going to get up off this wet ground, leave your sister’s life behind, and start living yours. I’m not gonna lie; it’s going to suck for a while. People are going to look at you differently, call you messed up and selfish. God knows Jenna will probably accuse you of being jealous, of pretending to be Maddy so that you could get Alex and be popular. But I’ll be there to help you.”

She paused and looked back toward the road. “And he’ll be there to help you, too.”

I followed her gaze and saw Josh standing there. I knew he’d heard everything I’d said, from the confession to the justifications I laid on Molly, the same ones I used on him.

“Has he been there the whole time?” I asked.

“Yep,” Molly said. “Did you think he would actually have let me come alone? Not a chance. As I said, that boy can’t help himself when it comes to you.”

Molly got up and brushed what she could of the mud from her pants, then took a step back. “If you ask me, I think Alex always knew you weren’t Maddy. He just didn’t care. That’s why he fought so hard to make everything seem perfect between the two of you and to cover for you.”

I knew what she was trying to say. He wanted Maddy, wanted me to be Maddy so much that he ignored the truth, hid from it like I had.

With one last encouraging nod, Molly turned and walked away. She stopped when she reached her car and called back, “You know what happened with your sister and the drugs? Well, that is done and over with. As far as I am concerned, that incident was buried with Maddy.”

“Thanks,” I said. I’d already done enough damage to Maddy’s name. I didn’t want her to suffer anymore.

42

My eyes scanned the nearly empty cemetery. When I woke up in the hospital, when everybody, including myself, thought I was Maddy, there were dozens of people there waiting for me to open my eyes. Here, on the day I was bringing Ella back, there were only Molly and Josh. But somehow that was okay. The person who mattered to me most was standing a few gravestones away, waiting for me to make the first move.

Josh held out his hand, softly beckoning me forward. He was the last person I wanted to hurt and the one person I didn’t think of when I made my choice to live a lie. When I didn’t move, he came to me.

“Hey, Ella.”

“I’m sorry.” It seemed completely inadequate, but I said it anyway. I was sorry for what my sister did to Molly. Sorry for taking my sister’s life in every way possible. Sorry for lying to my parents. And sorry for not trusting Josh with the truth from the beginning.

I slipped my hand into his and let his warmth comfort me. I didn’t know which one of us needed the physical contact more, but it made no difference either way. We both needed the reassurance that this was real, that I was finally admitting who I was and reclaiming my own life.

I turned and looked up into his eyes, silently thanking him for being here and never giving up on me. His eyes weren’t red-rimmed like mine, but they were glossy, letting me know he’d also been crying.

I ran my hand across his cheek. It was soft and strong like him. He stared at me, his eyes distant and sad as if unsure, or maybe too scared, to believe I was finally me. I couldn’t blame him. For so long I wasn’t.

I’d never touched him like this before—gently, intimately, like he meant more to me than anything else in this world. He did; and if he’d listen to me, give me a second chance to explain, I’d tell him.

“I love you, too,” I whispered. “Since the day Maddy introduced me to you, it’s been you.”

Josh’s eyes brightened at my words and he squeezed my hand tighter.

His silence troubled me. “It’s me. Ella. I mean, I’m not going to pretend to be Maddy anymore. Not with you, not with my parents, not with anybody,” I promised.

Josh looked down at the gravestone bearing my name. His hand shook in mine, and I was too afraid to break the forgiving quiet with words. I mumbled another apology and looked away.

“I was pissed at you, Ella, angry that you lied and hurt that you wouldn’t trust me with the truth, but that never changed the way I felt about you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there in the hospital when you woke up, sorry that I didn’t stay with Alex and see for myself who you were.”

“What I did … why I did it had nothing to do with you. You don’t need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did everything wrong,” Josh said. “I should’ve told you I loved you the minute I realized it. I should’ve continued to tell you every day I saw you. I should’ve made you go to your parents and tell them you weren’t Maddy the minute I figured it out. I should’ve told them myself. I should have—”

I held a finger up to his lips, silencing him. “And I shouldn’t have lied.”

The tears he’d been holding in finally fell, his eyes glinting with hope and promise. Everybody I needed was right there, including Maddy. As long as I had Josh, then somehow, everything—the accident, Maddy’s death, me pretending to be somebody I wasn’t—was going to be okay.

“I have something for you.” Josh pulled his hand away from mine and dug into his front pocket. His fingers curled around the object he’d yanked out. Whatever it was, it was tiny, completely eclipsed by his fingers.

“What is it?” I asked. When he opened his hand, a thin multicolored string fell between his fingers. I took it, turning the string bracelet over and over. I could see where the doctors had cut it off in the ER, where Josh had tried to piece it back together.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“I looked for it when I got to the hospital, to see which one of you had it on, but they’d cut it off. There was a pile of your stuff in the hall … both your things. I went through it and took it.”

“Why?”

Josh shrugged. “I wanted it.”

I handed it back to him and held out my wrist. “No, give me your foot,” he said as he knelt down in the wet grass. I felt his hands on my ankle. They were shaking like mine. “I did the best I could to fix the strings they cut in the ER,” he said as he tied off the last knot. “I know it’s not perfect, and I’ll buy matching ones for our wrists tomorrow, but I want you to wear it anyway.”

The tears I’d seen moments earlier were gone, his eyes now full of nervous anticipation. “I’ve missed you,” he said, and stood up, his hands toying with the damp strands of hair falling around my face. He was so close, close enough that I could see the flecks of gray in his green eyes.

“I have waited forever to do this, Ella, and I nearly lost you twice in the process.”

I suppose I should’ve waited for him, let Josh close those final two inches between us. But my stomach twisted in anticipation, my mind close to freezing up. I had waited for that moment for so long, had dreamed about it.

Ignoring my fear, I reached up and ran my hands through his hair, tugging gently until he got my hint. I didn’t want to wait anymore. I didn’t want to lose another second to fear or uncertainty.

He stopped as his lips met mine, his words whispered across my breath. “I love you, Ella Lawton. If you believe in nothing else, I need you to believe in that.”

I shook my head as he tried to swipe at my tears with his nose. I wanted to cry. I needed to cry. For the past, for the future, for him.

“And I love you, too.” Those words were an extension of me, every syllable of their meaning saving me from myself.

I heard rather than saw the car come to a stop, the tires screeching to a halt as the car door opened. They didn’t bother to turn the engine off or shut their doors. They got out and ran those few short steps to where I stood.

Josh grabbed my hand, probably afraid that I’d bolt. I wouldn’t. They already knew; the simple note I’d left them was still in my mom’s hand.

They looked so different, sad and hopeful at the same time. Mom smiled, the first true display of happiness I’d seen from her in weeks, and it was for me. Dad mouthed my name, my real name, then nodded. They knew who I was, what I’d done, and they’d come to find me anyway.

“Hi.” It seemed like such a silly way to start the conversation, but it was the only thing I could think of, the one word that solidified in the jumbled mess of emotions pouring out of me.

“This is Ella. Ella, these are your parents,” Josh said, and I laughed at the insanely sweet way he tried to smooth out the tense silence that surrounded us.

Dad chuckled, too, then held out his hand in a mock gesture of greeting. “Nice to have you back. I’m your father and this lovely lady standing next to me is your mom.”

I took his hand, fully aware he was going to pull me into his arms. I let him, burying myself in his chest and holding on like he was the last solid thing left in the world.

“We’ve missed you.”

The whispered words came from behind me, and I lifted my head enough to see Mom staring at me before she kissed the top of my head. I wiggled free, confused as to why they weren’t upset with me. I’d expected anger … for the accident, for lying, for taking what good memories they had of Maddy and destroying them. I was prepared for that, was prepared to accept that. But this, this silent forgiveness … I didn’t know what to do with it.

“You’re not angry,” I said as my head whipped between Mom and Dad. I was waiting, wondering which one of them was going to lose it on me first. Neither did. Mom shook her head, and Dad held out his arms again, offering me shelter and comfort.

“Why? I don’t get it, why aren’t you mad?”

“We’re sorry that you thought you had to do this. Sorry that you ever thought Maddy was more important to us than you. We are confused and angry with ourselves for not recognizing who you were the instant you woke up, but we’re not upset with you, Ella. We couldn’t be.”

Ella. The sound of my name coming from my mother had me shaking, seeking out my father’s hand as the weight of the lie I’d been carrying finally lifted. I sucked in a ragged breath and then another one after that, my heart, my soul, my entire being realigning itself with the truth that everybody now knew: I was Ella Lawton.

I reached out a hand to Josh, pulled him into the circle my parents’ arms had created around me. Somehow I knew it was going to be okay. Everything I needed was here, enveloping me. And as for Maddy, she was my sister, my first and best friend. Here or not, she was part of me and I would carry her with me forever.

Like Molly said, it wasn’t going to be easy—there would be gossip, and questions, and a crapload of family therapy—but I’d take it, because right there, standing at the grave of my sister, my life literally started over.